February 27, 2011

Every last Monday of the month, a group of friends in twitter join a “virtual” party where photos of an agreed dish/ingredient/theme are shared. It is the #twitterfoodparty ^__^.

I had plans for this month´s theme (cookies!) but with all the mess in my kitchen lately + trying to rest as much as possible in the weekend (to recover from flu) made me postpone the baking until better times.

February 22, 2011

Sometime ago I was invited to make a guest post about obentos for a really nice Brazilian blog/site that I follow. Superziper is maintained by two lovely ladies (Cláudia and Andrea) and they write about crafts and the wonderful world of handmade in general. The blog is in Portuguese but totally worth for a visit! ^__^

Today I show the bento I made for the post. The bento tutorial pictures are available in one of my flickr sets and can be seen in my guest post for their blog. Please take a look :).

Inside the box: a three layer sandwich made with whole wheat bread and rye bread slices, gouda cheese, cream-cheese and turkey ham. Pac-man made of cheddar and processed white cheese. Pink (monster) enemy ghost made of a baguette slice, cream-cheese and turkey ham, white cheese and nori for its eyes. Lettuce, dark grapes, half clementine and cherry tomatoes.

It was a really nice opportunity to introduce the world of bentos there and to show how to make a simple sandwich one. My tutorial pictures look a bit clumsy (and let me say, those who make tutorials I salute you! Wow, they are really time consuming … XD) but I think you can figure out what I did . EH!

I also made a small step-by-step of how to make decorative picks using tape and normal toothpicks. Nothing fancy, you can check up the pictures in the same places I mentioned above.

Hope more people will get interested about the lunch box – obento style. For the newcomers: the bento community online is very friendly and supportive, there are really great people you can count on and get inspiration from!

February 21, 2011

Sunday evening. Nobody was really hungry and I wasn’t in the mood to cook anything difficult.

I had a small package of aburaage (fried tofu) in the freezer and I wanted to make something “soupy”. What came to my mind? Kitsune udon!

Kitsune means fox in Japanese, so the dish translates to “Fox Udon”. I don’t have any idea why it´s called this way… maybe because foxes like aburaage ^_^? Or… because aburaage reminds the color of a fox? Oh well… belongs to the unanswered questions in life… (ahaha)

If you have time, please make the soup with a homemade dashi stock. And… if you can, use fresh udon. It is a simple meal but tastes very good with quality ingredients :)

The recipe is written with approximate amounts. I’ve learned how to make traditional udon soup/broth with my mother and as far as I remember, she never relied on exact measurements :P.

Put the aburaage in a bowl and pour hot water on it. Drain the pieces and put aside. This will remove some excess of oil from the fried tofu.

Heat the dashi stock in a medium pan, add the soy sauce, mirin, sugar and the small piece of kombu.

When the liquid starts boiling, low the heat and add the pieces of drained aburaage. Cook for about 10 minutes. Adjust the flavor by adding salt.

Reheat your cooked udon by putting it in a colander and pouring boiling water over. Another option is to add the noodles to the simmering soup (I prefer like this so the udon can “absorb” some flavors just before serving)

Divide the noodles into four bowls. Pour the hot soup over the noodles and top with the aburaage and spring onions. Sprinkle shichimi togarashi if desired.

Notes: I also topped with a piece of nori because Luonnonvoima likes it a lot. Kamaboko (fish cake) slices are good too. My daughters´ portions didn’t have shichimi togarashi but I like with it.

Alternatively for a stronger flavored topping, simmer the pieces of aburaage separately in soy sauce, dashi, mirin and sugar (resembling the method for making inarizushi skins).

February 14, 2011

Hyvää Ystävänpäivää! (Happy Friend´s Day!)

As I mentioned before, in Finland we celebrate the “Friend´s Day” on February 14th. It is the day we celebrate the friendship and all the great friends we are lucky to know and have ^_^. ( Including lovers, husbands, boyfriends too… :D)

In this romantic, sweet and sugary spirit, I made doughnuts! Ahahaha, isn´t it just lovely :P ? Chocolate heart shaped and baked ones! Yay! Can´t get better than this :P.

Oh… I must warn those who are expecting a real doughnut feeling… Sorry guys, these are more like doughnut cakes than the yeast fried ones… but still good ;)!

February 12, 2011

Last year a sweet friend of mine asked me if i could craft a small charm to a little dude she knows that is fanatic for anything octopus. She saw one felt octopus in my Flickr sets and requested if I could create something similar.

I tried to make a little tako (that´s what I call him :), octopus in Japanese) using the crochet amigurumi technique. I think he became really cute ^_^.

And for some extra treats, I also crafted two bunnies (celebrating 2011, the year of the Rabbit) to my friend´s lovely daughter and her best friend. I hope they enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making the little buddies!

It took a while for these little dudes to arrive to their destination. But I am very glad they finally made it :).

Please check out my friend´s lovely blog too! Chantale writes about the adventures of her sweet daughter as well as darling discoveries in the world of childhood and design. It is pure delight !

February 10, 2011

Not exactly a Valentine´s day bento, but I think it fits the theme :P. In Finland there is what we call “Ystävänpäivä” (translated to “Friend´s day”), celebrated on Feb 14th. According to Wikipedia, it seems to be the second most important reason to send cards and postcards (Christmas is the 1st) in Finland, but to tell you the truth… I didn’t get much since I moved here.

Well… I remember making Valentine´s cards at my English school when I was a kid and that was it… XD

I prepared the bentos in the morning so the girls could eat them after coming home, at lunch time. (And I just noticed I don´t have heart decorative picks! How non-romantic I am…)